


Dolly

by thelonebamf



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-30
Updated: 2009-08-30
Packaged: 2018-02-22 23:27:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2525600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelonebamf/pseuds/thelonebamf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even after several years, Snake can't help but find similarities between himself and another famous replica.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dolly

“Do you remember Dolly?” 

Hal hadn’t even entered the room yet, but Dave was quick to notice the incoming scent of his green tea soap and a hint of humidity from the open bathroom door.

“Sorry?” came the confused reply, just a moment before the engineer was in sight. “Dolly?” 

A few faces flickered in Hal's memory- operatives, other scientists, that waitress at the all-nite where they'd been forced to skip out on the check when their cover was blown. Still, the name didn't sound familiar.

"B-blonde?"

The soldier rolled his eyes. 

“You know, in the papers a long time ago. The sheep.” Dave hadn’t turned his gaze away from the television set, which indicated he was either engrossed in the program or, more likely, was avoiding eye contact.

Hal remained puzzled for a moment before finally understanding. “Oh, that Dolly,” he said at last, taking a seat on the opposite side of the sofa. “Yeah, I remember hearing about it, I guess. Wasn’t really my field of study, but it’s hard to miss big news like that. Why?”

Still not meeting the engineer’s eyes, Dave nodded his head in the direction of the battered coffee table in the center of the room. On it were a few magazines- presumably left by a previous tenant- several years old and yellowed at the edges, most featuring water spots prominently on the cover. From the top of the pile, the somewhat disconcerting stare of a young sheep stared up at him, and it wasn’t long before his curiosity demanded he take a closer look. Many of the pages were stuck together, and Hal was positive some sort of mold was growing beneath the rusted staples. The magazine offered up the same news story that was found in any paper from that year- the pomp and circumstance surrounding the birth of the cloned sheep had both excited and terrified the world. The question had always been whether or not mankind’s desire for achievement would outgrow its fear of the unknown. Silently, Hal flipped through the pages, pausing once or twice to study a discolored diagram, but after a moment he unceremoniously dropped the magazine on the table.

“Interesting I guess, but old news, right? The animal’s probably not even still kicking. How long do sheep live anyway? Ten years?” Hal shrugged and settled back into the sofa, allowing the scent of Dave’s forgotten cigarette to overtake that of his own soap. 

“About that,” Dave responded. “Dolly there only lived for six, though. Complications set in, arthritis, some kind of lung thing. They put her down.”

“Oh,” came a soft reply. “That’s too bad. But I suppose that sort of thing happens all the time. With sheep, I mean. Not with clones. It’s not as though there’s enough of them to go out and take a survey. Er…” Hal glanced at Dave before trailing off. He wasn’t sure where his friend was going with this, but assumed they wouldn’t be talking about dead livestock if there wasn’t a reason.

“The sheep they cloned her from was six years old when they took the cells from her,” Dave continued. “Some of those scientists think maybe Dolly was fated to live only that long.”

Hal sat up a little straighter, and looked at the soldier, who still refused to meet his eyes. The flickering of the television sent a silver light across his features, and all at once he realized why Dave was so preoccupied with decade-old news. “I see. But Dave, c’mon, it was a sheep. An animal.”

“A beast?” questioned the soldier, his eyes darting to the other man for a fraction of a second. “Some other things in that magazine there,” Dave interrupted. “This one had a freaky picture of a girl with bug eyes and pigtails. Looked like ‘The Bad Seed’ or something. All those science folks, bible thumpers, heck even math teachers and retired nurses, weighing in on what would happen to the world if human clones were running about.”

“Dave…” whispered Hal.

The other man let out a dry huff of a laugh, “Suppose we pulled one over on them. By then I was what, twenty? Twenty-five? And Liquid. And Solidus. Damn their theories. We were already out there.”

Hal wasn’t sure what to say to that. He’d been surprised of course, to learn of Dave’s origins, but who was he to scoff at family history? To tell the truth, he’d been more impressed that such effective technology had existed at the time. Of course, he’d had many years to become acquainted with the secretive nature of the beast when it came to technology. Just because TIME wasn’t devoting a twelve-page spread to techno-terrors didn’t mean they weren’t out there. 

Had he just compared Dave to the Metal Gears?

There was no time to dwell on it, even if he had, because Dave went right on talking. 

“That picture of the girl creeped me out. A lot of those people seem to think that a human clone would be somehow flawed. Well, no argument there, but there was the notion that clones would be less than human. Missing some crucial element. A… a…”

“A soul?” Hal finished for the other man.

Dave’s silence was answer enough.

Neither of them spoke for a time, allowing the sound of the program to fill the room instead. Hal watched his friend for a moment, watched the tightening of his jaw as his teeth ground together, the deep set stare at the television, too deep for him to actually be paying attention. It was a shame, too. Mythbusters was one of the few shows the two of them could actually agree on watching. He turned back to his friend who was still sitting in stony silence. This wasn’t the steely countenance of a soldier stealthily avoiding detection, it was the frozen air of a man who had asked a difficult question and was waiting for an answer he wasn’t sure he would like. 

The sound of missiles being catapulted at cars continued to fill the void. “Why is he asking me about this?” Hal wondered to himself. “I’m no good with people. Heck, half the time when I’m talking to him it’s through a codec. I’m used to handling computers, machines, artificial constructs…” his eyes shot back to Dave, still motionless. “I guess I just answered my own question,” Hal concluded at last.

“I can’t help you there, Dave,” Hal shrugged and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees and allowing his hands to drop between his legs. “I don’t know much about the inner workings of man,” he exhaled a short huff that might have been a laugh, “I spent most of my life avoiding other people, and eventually designed something that could destroy them. The ultimate weapon.” 

The soldier made no response, so Hal considered it an invitation to continue.

“I know, I know, I was stupid, but I never intended for Rex to do any harm to anyone. But that’s just it. Rex… Rex was a machine. It was designed by men, but in the end it didn’t care about mankind. It didn’t question its programming or weigh out the consequences of its actions. Rex never wondered whether or not I’d approve of what it was doing, it was just… just a thing.” Hal was rambling, he knew, but it was the only way he could get his point across. He just hoped Dave was able to find the seed of truth in his long-winded speech, rather than simply getting annoyed, or worse, hurt at the comparison. 

“If Rex were to read what the papers had to say about him, he wouldn’t feel anything,” the engineer soldiered on, “wouldn’t be concerned or confused. That is if Rex were capable of reading the papers, I guess. What I’m trying to say is, augh…” Hal sighed in exasperation as he leaned back against the sofa, his head thrown back, unfocused eyes facing the ceiling.

“Look, Dave, you’ve got convictions. You have courage I’ve yet to see matched in another human being.” He turned his head sideways to face his friend. “You’ve got…” There was a brief silence as the Hal lightly rested his fingers on his chest. He drummed them there for a moment, looking for the words before abandoning the search.

“Geez, I don’t know,” he finished lamely, head lolling against the threadbare cushion. “Who’s to say, right? I mean, do you have a soul? I don’t know. Come to that, do I?” He shrugged and turned his gaze back to the television.

A few minutes and pyrotechnic displays later, a gruff voice spoke up at last.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’d say you do.”


End file.
